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Saturday, July 07, 2007

Vitamin C, Niacin, Antibiotics, Cold Viruses, Babies, and Children

A link to a detailed report of rapidly healing a very sick baby with 20,000 mg/day doses of vitamin C can be found here

The 11-month-old baby had been sick almost from birth and had completed 12 rounds of antibiotics at the direction of the family pediatrician. When started on vitamin C, the baby had been very sick for over a week. No one in the family had been getting enough sleep. They were up night after night with this child, who had a high fever, glazed watery eyes, tons of thick watery mucus, labored breathing, would not sleep, and did little else but cry. The parents fed the baby 1000 or 2000 mg of vitamin C every one or two hours to reach a total dose of 20,000 mg/day for two days. The baby was noticeably improved in under twelve hours, and slept through the first night. The baby was completely well in 48 hours.

The author of the report claims that the dosage was a new record high for a young child, proving that babies and toddlers sick with chronic respiratory viruses have rarely been treated with more than 10,000 mg/day of vitamin C.In this column I am going to provide a second case report.

By January of 1995, the health of a 22-month-old toddler had been steadily eroded by multiple viral respiratory infections that resulted from contact with playmates at daycare. The baby was healthy for the first nine months of life before daycare started. This toddler had completed five or six rounds of antibiotics at the direction of the family pediatrician with minimal benefit. No one in the family had been getting enough sleep. They were up regularly with this child, treating wheezy lungs with asthma medication, treating coughing with cough syrup, and wiping away tons of thick watery mucus. The toddler’s health was steadily worsening, and outdoor play was becoming a serious problem because of the wheezy lungs. The father started the toddler on 2000 mg of orange-flavored chewable vitamin C tablets. The first dose had a noticeable decongestive effect. The toddler declared, “My nosey is cleared! I can breath!” The father told the toddler that the orange vitamin C was responsible. After several hours, the toddler asked for more vitamin C to clear her nose. The father allowed the toddler to take as many chewable vitamin C tablets as she wanted. Since the toddler chose between four and eight 500 mg tablets every few hours, the father did not intervene. The toddler was noticeably improved in under twelve hours, and slept through the first night after consuming about 20,000 mg of vitamin C throughout the course of the day. The toddler ate about 10,000 mg of vitamin C on the second day, and was well after 48 hours. The father maintained the toddler on 2,000 to 4,000 mg/day of vitamin C.

Only a very small percentage of babies and toddlers get this sick from respiratory infections. However, almost every baby and toddler suffers from colds as part of the process of gaining immunity. These extraordinary case histories should open the minds of parents and pediatricians to the benefits of 2,000 to 4,000 mg/day of vitamin C for the children in their care.This story should not be dismissed as anecdotal. The babies in question had colds. Vitamin C has been proven by double blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials to reduce the duration and severity of colds. The size of the response was proportional to dose out to the highest doses of 2,000 to 8,000 mg/day. Children responded more positively to vitamin C treatment than adults. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_C_megadosage#Common_cold

These two cases build confidence in the known, extraordinary safety of vitamin C. Feeding babies 20,000 mg/day of vitamin C involves the risk of stepping outside the ordinary standard of care. This risk needs to be weighed against the risks of the ordinary standard of care. Antibiotics, aspirin and related drugs, cough medicines, asthma medicines, and other medications in the ordinary standard of care all carry much higher risk than ordinary doses of vitamin C. The Food and Nutrition Board considers vitamin C supplements of up to 2,000 mg/day to be ordinary doses. These cases suggest that two days at elevated doses followed by a maintenance dose of 2,000 mg/day has the potential to nearly eliminate the need to use pharmaceuticals to treat childhood respiratory infections.

I have already written two columns suggesting that combining high doses of vitamin C with 100 to 250 mg/day of niacin (time-release is recommended to minimize side effects) is a far more potent treatment for colds than vitamin C alone. I continue to get positive reports about the effectiveness of this novel combination. Using this combination, many older children and adults achieve the dramatic, obvious response felt by the two infants discussed in detail in this column.

There is no need for more studies. Vitamin C has achieved the gold-standard safety rating of “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) and is sold without childproof caps. All parents and pediatricians of babies, toddlers, and children with poor immunity towards colds should carefully consider as much as 20,000 mg/day of vitamin C as a treatment. All parents should consider extra vitamin C, B-complex vitamins, niacin, and multi-vitamins to further improve the immunity of their children towards colds, and also to optimize overall health and intelligence.